


Steps and Ballroom

by Taupefox59



Category: The Hobbit RPF
Genre: Aidan does Irish step dancing, Ballroom Dancing, Bringin' Down The System!, Dean is a ballroom dancer, M/M, Strictly Ballroom au
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-05-19
Updated: 2016-05-19
Packaged: 2018-06-09 11:19:43
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,025
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6903718
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Taupefox59/pseuds/Taupefox59
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Dean was raised to be a professional dancer; from the time he was a small child, every single one of his steps had been carefully choreographed by his mother.</p><p>He never expected to be swept off his feet by the charming Irish step-dancer Aidan, who burned with a passion for dance that Dean had long since forgotten...</p>
            </blockquote>





	Steps and Ballroom

**Author's Note:**

> Sorry if this looks familiar friends! - I originally wrote this for the Spring Raffle thing, and posted it up as a Fiki piece.
> 
> But...the pretentious artist in my soul was doing the whole obnoxious 'but it doesn't _feel_ right!!!' thing.  
>  So, I've pulled it, and posted it up like this, which is sort of how I always saw it.
> 
> If you want to read the Fiki version, that's still available on my tumblr [ here. ](http://taupefox59.tumblr.com/post/143161952687/springfre-prompt-17)
> 
> Un-beta'd, so if you catch anything please let me know! Con/Crit always welcome.
> 
> This entire thing was literally written with [ 'American Wake' from the Riverdance soundtrack ](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RftRB1nyk-Y), just. On repeat.

Dean stared at his father. He had never expected anything like this to happen. For as long as he could remember, his dad had been there, been supportive. True, he’d always been pushed, but he’d never seen this. He’d never been faced with the stony faced, dead-eyed man he saw now. The flat voice that told him, in weary, broken tones that what he needed to do was to dance the steps that he’d always learned.

Of course it was the final competition, of course there was so much riding on how well he did today. The studio his parents owned would once again be full of students hoping to get in if it turned out a championship pair. He himself would never be out of work - a dream in any kind of professional dancing. Winning a tournament meant he at least had a future teaching others after retiring from the competition circuit.

He could win. Winning was the thing that he was supposed to do. It would be so easy to go back into the wings, to find Shirley Sugar and go on stage with her. They would do the same dance they’d been doing since they were both toddlers. They’d won the circuit so many times, it was nearly expectation for them to win it now. They’d become dancing partners when they were learning to walk. It didn’t even matter if he’d been slacking off on their rehearsals. There was nothing that they couldn’t do with the professional polish needed to advance, even at the world championship level.

Dancing with Shirley Sugar, though, was polish. Recited movements that had been drilled to perfection. With Shirley, they would spin through the judges, knowing just where to turn, and when to smile to maximize points. They knew which judges liked which spins, which ones gave higher points for more lifts or which ones prefered close-couple dancing. Dancing with Shirely was dancing for numbers.

Dancing with Aidan, though, was like nothing else that Dean had ever done before. Aidan was passion, and rhythm. Aidan had first learned Irish step-dancing. His first pair of dance shoes had been slick-soled, and he’d glued coins to the bottom to turn them into make-shift clogs. Aidan had wild, long, curling hair, and couldn’t open his mouth without swearing. Dancing with Aidan would get them both disqualified.

Or.

Dancing with Aidan would change the world of ballroom dancing. It would break down the stuffy rules, and the ever-mounting pressure from judges. It would take down the increasingly out-of-touch rulebook and remind everyone what dancing was meant to be about. Dean could feel the way that his heart sped up when he thought of Aidan’s smile. The look of triumph on Aidan’s face when they had first managed to blend their steps together. The flourish and show of Dean’s ballroom background with the lively vibrance of Aidan’s. The had fallen together; it hadn’t been easy or expected, but the fire of it was addicting.

More than anything else, though, it was good.

Dean knew that. It wasn’t just about rules or the backstage politics of the Ballroom Dance world. It was that he knew his own dancing had never been better. Aidan pushed him. Dean had grown up in the world, been surrounded by all of it for so long, that he’d become complacent. Aidan had torn down everything that Dean had walled up. Aidan had pulled him down out from his dusty attic of long-perfected twirls and twists, and thrown it all back into the fire. Dancing with Aidan wasn’t just following the steps that he’d been taught for his entire life. Dancing with Aidan...was *fun*.

It struck Dean to the core how far removed from emotion he’d become. Everything was minute shifts in weight, adjusting balance. His entire life was making sure that costumes matched in just the right way as to insure the highest score possible from the panel of judges.

Dean loved dancing - of course he did. Despite his family’s dance studio, a person did not become a professional dancer without the drive and desire to do it. Dancing was a way of life for Dean. It was how he found himself within the noise of life. Whenever he found himself at a lost, Dean simply turned up the music and lost himself to it. Dance was beyond thought. Dance was intrinsic knowing, muscles responding to beat and tone and tempo. Dance was being able to turn off his mind and trust his body. He could become a conduit, let his mind go blank as he turned the raw emotion of music into instinctive movement. With dance, Dean could burn through whatever fog had built up in his life, cut through all of the currents that threatened to drag him away. Alone in a studio, he could let himself go. Dancing was like going super-nova; some kind of explosion that only resulted into everything falling into place. Dancing was how Dean thought, how he lived.

He looked up and met his Dad's eyes. Dean lived dance, but he fought with dance too, and this couldn’t be a battle that he lost. If dancing with Shirley Sugar led to a future like his father's - a future where he would stand, dull-eyed and broken hearted, lost to the shadows of what had once been a bright and shining dream, then no choice existed. None ever had.

‘I can’t dance with Shirley, Dad.’ Dean swallowed hard. ‘I’ve got to find Aidan.’ He closed his eyes, took a deep breath, then turned and ran. He had to get backstage. He had to find the beginner bracket, where Aidan would be dancing with his partner from class. Dean could only hope that Aidan would still be willing to perform their routine.

Dean sprinted away and never looked back, so he never saw the look of pride shining on his father’s face.

****

 

Aidan had been packing his bag when Dean finally reached him.

‘Dance with me in the finals.’ Dean panted out, breathless and pleading.

Aidan looked up from his bag with a frown. ‘I thought I was just a silly beginner.’ Aidan’s voice was acid and bitter, and Dean winced to hear his words thrown back at him.

‘I was wrong.’

‘I’m nothing more than a bad influence. I’ll ruin your chances for ever achieving anything.’ Aidan continued. His movements were jerky, and he shoved his clothes into his bag with far more force than necessary.

‘That was my mother, I didn’t mean-’

‘It wasn’t your mother!’ Aidan cried, nearly knocking his bag off the bench. ‘You said that!’

‘I know I did.’ Dean said, biting his lip. ‘I know I did, and I was wrong! I was scared, and I was angry, and I’m sorry. Will you please dance with me in the finals?’

Aidan paused. ‘We haven’t practiced’

Hope flickered to life in Dean chest. ‘We have. We’ve spent months practicing.’

‘I don’t know if I-’

‘I do.’ Dean said. ‘I do. You know this, Aidan. It’s just like it always has been. It’s just us and the music.’

Aidan brow furrowed and he chewed on his lip.

‘Please, Aidan. Please come dance in the final with me.’

‘We won’t win.’

Dean grinned, feeling like he could breathe again for the first time in weeks. ‘We don’t need to win. We just need to remind them what dance can be.’

Aidan let out a huff of laughter. ‘We’re gonna change the world with this one?’

Dean nodded, feeling like his blood had been replaced with effervescing fire. ‘Yes.’

‘You dream big.’

‘Only because of you.’ Dean replied, honestly.

‘Alright.’ Aidan said. ‘How much time before we go on?’

Dean checked his watch. ‘We have about four minutes to get backstage before I get disqualified.’

Aidan’s eyes widened with panic. ‘Shit!’

Dean grabbed his hand, and they sprinted back to the main stage where the championship finals were being held.

 

****

 

Dean could feel Aidan’s hand shaking in his when they took to the floor. The room was completely silent. ‘Hey.’ Dean whispered quietly, getting Aidan’s attention. ‘None of them matter, alright? None of them are here. It’s just you and me.’

Aidan closed his eyes and let out a slow breath. ‘Us and the music.’

Dean nodded. ‘Us and the music. Just like always.’

‘Just like always.’ Aidan repeated.

The opening notes of the music played over the stereo system, and they both knew there was no turning back.

They moved with each other, spinning across the floor, weaving together and away again. There were the ornamentations of Dean’s traditional background, but with shuffling leaps and tight spins from Aidan’s roots in step dancing. They would separate, only to mirror each other on opposite sides of the stage before spiraling back together. They always wound up back together, as if some kind of magnetic force drew then there. Hand in hand they chased each other across the stage, close enough for their thighs to brush. One would step backwards as the other went forward, hands sliding from neck to hip then out for a flourish.

It wasn’t ballroom. It wasn’t legal. It wasn’t anything that anyone had ever seen before; but Dean and Aidan looked at each other and there nothing else existed. Just them and the music, moving to the same steps that they’d pulled together over the past several months. The ones they’d rehearsed in parking lots, on rooftops, during countless hours in the studio. It wasn’t a piece that had been built for points or pleasing judges; it was their courtship. Their steps held their lives; where they’d come from, the struggle to find identity in expression. The frustration and the passion of artists learning to compromise. The incandescent, joyous chemistry of finding a muse. Their decision that art was a risk worth taking.

The beat picked up, and Dean spun away. He crossed to the far side of the stage and caught Aidan’s eye. The finale to their piece hadn’t been fully perfected, but Dean knew that it didn’t matter. He could feel it. He rushed back across the stage; he leapt, leapt, then felt Aidan’s hands land solidly on his waist and lift him into the air. They spun together once, twice, then Aidan’s hands slid to the small of Dean’s back, and Dean let his head fall, as he dipped back far enough for the back of his hand to brush the stage floor.

The music ended. The only sound came from their own exerted panting. The joy of their dance seemed to be sucked into the void created by the yawning, endless silence from the spectators.

They finally stood from holding the final pose. They audience was a black mass, impossible to see past the blinding brightness of the stage lights. The silence stretched. Aidan took Dean’s hand and squeezed it tightly; in love, in fear, in solidarity. If this was a mistake, it was one that they had chosen to make together.

Then they heard it: the slow clap of a single person. Dean squinted against the spotlight. It looked like someone was walking down the aisle towards the stage. The clapping continued, slowly being joined by other people. The sound grew louder and louder, and finally Dean could clearly make out the outline of the person approaching the stage.

‘Dad?’

Dean father didn’t stop until he was standing at the edge of the stage, clapping furiously. Behind him, the entire audience seemed to have found their courage, rising to their feet to clap along. Aidan and Dean glanced at each other when people started stamping and cheering. The judges were trying to bring the crowd back to some kind of order, but their voices were drowned out by the jubilant noise.

Dean glanced at his dad, then turned back to Aidan. ‘We did it.’

Aidan stared out at the crowd. ‘I guess we did.’

‘Hey.’ Dean said.

Aidan turned to him, and Dean pulled him down for a kiss. Aidan shut his eyes and leaned into it. Neither of them even noticed when the curtains were pulled closed in front of them.

**Author's Note:**

> As always, if you want to chat, say hi, leave a prompt or a request or anything, stop by[ My tumblr](http://taupefox59.tumblr.com/)!


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